The Mountain Digby
Los Angeles, California | Theatre
Musical, Comedy
After a decade of development and sold-out readings, we’re ready to bring The Mountain Digby to life. Your support helps us pay our artists, create the show, and open the doors to the community that makes live theater matter.
The Mountain Digby
Los Angeles, California | Theatre
Musical, Comedy
1 Campaigns | California, United States
21 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$3,730
Goal: $16,250 for production
After a decade of development and sold-out readings, we’re ready to bring The Mountain Digby to life. Your support helps us pay our artists, create the show, and open the doors to the community that makes live theater matter.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
The Mountain Digby is a hilariously gruesome musical about two brothers, Robbie and Nyle Digby, raised atop their family’s mountain. Below them, the townspeople they hate, who’ve spent generations building a monstrous mythology around them.
When a bureaucratic technicality threatens to take their family mountain, the brothers are forced into town for the very first time. Their plan?
Dig up the dead. Feed them to their worms. Grow the mountain. Keep their land.
It’s simple. It’s desperate. It almost works.
The singing, dancing, Broadway-musical kind of freakshow!
The Mountain Digby blends:
- Macabre, character-driven comedy
- 22 original showtunes that are absolute bangers
- Inventive shadow puppetry designed by award winning puppeteers
- Heart, guts, and choreography
How stories stick.
In The Mountain Digby, one lie becomes generations of belief. Rumors turn into policy. And before long, everyone’s living inside a distorted version of reality.
But we’re not here to lecture you. We made a musical where those ideas burst through with songs, puppetry, and delightfully gory death sequences.
The Mountain Digby has been over a decade in the making. We were building momentum, developing the show from a one-act at MCL Theater in Chicago to a two-act at LA’s Hudson Theater Mainstage.
Our opening night was slated for Friday, March 13, 2020—the same day Covid shut us down.
But The Mountain Digby refused to die. We kept writing, refining, and, when it was safe, putting up sold-out readings.
Now, with countless iterations behind us and dozens of artistic partners beside us, we’re ready for our next opening night.
Simply put, you’re supporting community theater. Not as a punchline, but as what it actually is: artists and audiences coming together to create something live, ambitious, and transformative.
That means your donation helps support a team of 25+ artists as they build the world of Digby through sets, puppetry, music, and performance.
And if we hit our stretch goal:
300 complimentary tickets for the LA community.
We can make things even weirder. In a good way.
At $23,500, we'll make every ticket to our live production free. That's 300 opportunities to experience live theatre for free.
At $30,000, we'll rent a recording studio, hire an engineer, and lay down an Original Cast Recording.
Let's see how high this mountain can get!
Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell that one guy at work who keeps saying, "Theatre is dead."
Money is great, but it's not the only way to support The Mountain Digby.
Follow along on social media (@TheMountaingDigbyMusical) and share this campaign to help us reach the people who'll love our bizarre, macabre, beautiful show as much as we do.
Email : [email protected]
Website: themountaindigby.com
*Photos by Greer Bratschie, Tyler Davis
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Theater Rental
Costs $3,150
Sure, all the world’s a stage, but we like ours air-conditioned, well-lit, and with comfortable seating!
Shadow Puppets
Costs $300
Our design team can bring shadows to life but they’ll need a budget for paper & knives…which they definitely won't turn on us. Right? Right?
Set
Costs $500
TMD explores how many corpses it takes to grow a mountain. Luckily, we only need $500 to build one on our stage.
Costumes
Costs $500
Nothing takes you out of a play like an actor in a pair of Crocs...so please don’t make our cast provide their own costumes.
Artist Stipends
Costs $10,000
Support 25+ artists involved in the project (they’ve gotta pay for their insulin somehow!)
Microphone Rentals
Costs $1,350
The only thing better than our vocalists? Hearing them in crisp, clean surround sound.
Insurancce
Costs $150
Our play is full of blood and guts so our rehearsals don’t have to be.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Cassie Ahiers - Producer, Writer, Director
Cassie is a director, writer, and filmmaker creating playful, experimental, and unapologetically DIY work across stage and screen. Originally from Minnesota, she studied directing at Columbia College Chicago, where her roots in improv and sketch comedy helped shape a collaborative and adventurous artistic practice. She later directed for The Second City National Touring Company. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2019, Cassie has worked as an acting coach on more than 50 episodes of television with Nickelodeon and directed new works at The Elysian Theater. Her original musical, The Mountain Digby, has been recognized by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Steller Emerging Creator Award, and the American Playwriting Foundation. In 2024, Cassie developed The Blast Zone, a docu-podcast piloted with NPR and Atlas Obscura. She is currently celebrating the international award-winning festival run of her film Boy Band in a Haunted Hotel, created with and starring adults with developmental disabilities. As an educator, she is passionate about helping people of all ages discover creativity, confidence, and connection.
Anthony Lombard - Producer, Writer, Robbie Digby
Anthony is a writer, producer, and performer rumored to be the offspring of Jack Black and Nathan Lane. The son of a choreographer, he grew up backstage and developed an early love for making live theater. After earning a degree in Entertainment Business, he moved to Chicago and worked in the theater community at Victory Gardens, Drury Lane, and Chicago Children’s Theatre. Forging his own path, he studied writing, improv, and musical comedy at The Second City and iO. Alongside his wife and creative collaborator, Anthony has spent years bringing independent projects to life, including immersive theater, original musicals, live comedy shows, and a DIY comedy theater that operated out of their basement. Their musical The Mountain Digby, has earned recognition from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Steller Emerging Creator Award, and the American Playwriting Foundation. He is also the lead singer and principal “skanker” of The Founding Skathers, a comedy ska band. Since moving to Los Angeles, he has worked as an acting coach at Nickelodeon on The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder and Warped! and has performed in The Elysian Theater’s Spaghetti Fest.
Alex Kliner - Producer, Writer, Music Director
Alex Kliner is a writer, composer, and performer for stage and screen. He began his comedy career in Chicago as Music Director for The Second City, writing music and designing sound for multiple resident revues on the e.t.c. stage. He’s written for Cards Against Humanity, toured with Whose Line Is It Anyway? filling in for Dr. Laura Hall on the keys, and has produced music for feature films, series, and numerous podcasts on Earwolf and other networks. A regular performer at SF Sketchfest, Alex improvises piano accompaniment for Paul F. Tompkins’ SponTourCo and other live shows. He’s the co-creator and co-host of the Earwolf podcast The Supergroup, bringing comedians and musicians together to write and record original songs. Alex is represented by Canopy Media Partners.
Brad Kemp - Composer
Brad currently serves as the Artistic Director at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, where he is a nightly fixture on the piano. A prolific composer and performer, he is also a founding member of the comedy rap trio Handsome Naked, whose work has reached the Billboard Comedy Top 10 and been featured on NBC’s Bring The Funny. With a degree in Music Composition from Columbia College, Brad has scored numerous acclaimed productions, including The Mountain Digby, Abduction, and the award-winning Tapped. His collaborative portfolio spans from Saturday Night Live alum Chris Redd to RuPaul’s Drag Race winners Yvie Oddly and Shea Couleé. Whether he is contributing to iHeartRadio podcasts or musical directing theater at The Second City and New York Stage and Film, Brad remains a vital voice in the intersection of music and comedy. He lives in Amsterdam with his wife and their dog, Bootsy.
John Lombard - Writer
John Lombard is a creative writer and lyricist whose work spans theater, short films, and fiction, often exploring unconventional characters, dark comedy, and everyday underdogs in bigger-than-life circumstances. His early love of storytelling led him to study theater and entertainment in college and later train in Second City’s comedy writing program. His work has been recognized by the Austin Film Festival, Indie Short Fest, and the National Alliance for Musical Theater. John is grateful to be part of this project and to collaborate with such a talented creative team. Outside of writing, his newest favorite role is being a dad to his six-month old son, Luca.
Grace Palmer .............. Associate Producer
Kristen Bernier ............ Choreographer
Tyler Davis .................. Technical Director
Karly Bergmann ........... Shadow Puppetry Director
Jake Quatt .................. Shadow Puppetry Designer, Puppeteer
Ches Cipriano .............. Shadow Puppetry Designer, Puppeteer
Nicole Werth ............... Costume Designer
Sarah Moore ................ Marketing Consultant
Peter Scott .................. Set Builder
Jacquelyn Landgraf ..... Creative Consultant
Cast:
Anthony Lombard
Rashawn Scott
Susan Glynn
Bruce Merkle
Andrew Huber
Jordan Lee Cohen
Isabella Gerasole
Jesse Kendall
Alan Giles
Grace Palmer
Dan Leahy
+ More announced soon!
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
The Mountain Digby is a hilariously gruesome musical about two brothers, Robbie and Nyle Digby, raised atop their family’s mountain. Below them, the townspeople they hate, who’ve spent generations building a monstrous mythology around them.
When a bureaucratic technicality threatens to take their family mountain, the brothers are forced into town for the very first time. Their plan?
Dig up the dead. Feed them to their worms. Grow the mountain. Keep their land.
It’s simple. It’s desperate. It almost works.
The singing, dancing, Broadway-musical kind of freakshow!
The Mountain Digby blends:
- Macabre, character-driven comedy
- 22 original showtunes that are absolute bangers
- Inventive shadow puppetry designed by award winning puppeteers
- Heart, guts, and choreography
How stories stick.
In The Mountain Digby, one lie becomes generations of belief. Rumors turn into policy. And before long, everyone’s living inside a distorted version of reality.
But we’re not here to lecture you. We made a musical where those ideas burst through with songs, puppetry, and delightfully gory death sequences.
The Mountain Digby has been over a decade in the making. We were building momentum, developing the show from a one-act at MCL Theater in Chicago to a two-act at LA’s Hudson Theater Mainstage.
Our opening night was slated for Friday, March 13, 2020—the same day Covid shut us down.
But The Mountain Digby refused to die. We kept writing, refining, and, when it was safe, putting up sold-out readings.
Now, with countless iterations behind us and dozens of artistic partners beside us, we’re ready for our next opening night.
Simply put, you’re supporting community theater. Not as a punchline, but as what it actually is: artists and audiences coming together to create something live, ambitious, and transformative.
That means your donation helps support a team of 25+ artists as they build the world of Digby through sets, puppetry, music, and performance.
And if we hit our stretch goal:
300 complimentary tickets for the LA community.
We can make things even weirder. In a good way.
At $23,500, we'll make every ticket to our live production free. That's 300 opportunities to experience live theatre for free.
At $30,000, we'll rent a recording studio, hire an engineer, and lay down an Original Cast Recording.
Let's see how high this mountain can get!
Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell that one guy at work who keeps saying, "Theatre is dead."
Money is great, but it's not the only way to support The Mountain Digby.
Follow along on social media (@TheMountaingDigbyMusical) and share this campaign to help us reach the people who'll love our bizarre, macabre, beautiful show as much as we do.
Email : [email protected]
Website: themountaindigby.com
*Photos by Greer Bratschie, Tyler Davis
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Theater Rental
Costs $3,150
Sure, all the world’s a stage, but we like ours air-conditioned, well-lit, and with comfortable seating!
Shadow Puppets
Costs $300
Our design team can bring shadows to life but they’ll need a budget for paper & knives…which they definitely won't turn on us. Right? Right?
Set
Costs $500
TMD explores how many corpses it takes to grow a mountain. Luckily, we only need $500 to build one on our stage.
Costumes
Costs $500
Nothing takes you out of a play like an actor in a pair of Crocs...so please don’t make our cast provide their own costumes.
Artist Stipends
Costs $10,000
Support 25+ artists involved in the project (they’ve gotta pay for their insulin somehow!)
Microphone Rentals
Costs $1,350
The only thing better than our vocalists? Hearing them in crisp, clean surround sound.
Insurancce
Costs $150
Our play is full of blood and guts so our rehearsals don’t have to be.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Cassie Ahiers - Producer, Writer, Director
Cassie is a director, writer, and filmmaker creating playful, experimental, and unapologetically DIY work across stage and screen. Originally from Minnesota, she studied directing at Columbia College Chicago, where her roots in improv and sketch comedy helped shape a collaborative and adventurous artistic practice. She later directed for The Second City National Touring Company. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2019, Cassie has worked as an acting coach on more than 50 episodes of television with Nickelodeon and directed new works at The Elysian Theater. Her original musical, The Mountain Digby, has been recognized by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Steller Emerging Creator Award, and the American Playwriting Foundation. In 2024, Cassie developed The Blast Zone, a docu-podcast piloted with NPR and Atlas Obscura. She is currently celebrating the international award-winning festival run of her film Boy Band in a Haunted Hotel, created with and starring adults with developmental disabilities. As an educator, she is passionate about helping people of all ages discover creativity, confidence, and connection.
Anthony Lombard - Producer, Writer, Robbie Digby
Anthony is a writer, producer, and performer rumored to be the offspring of Jack Black and Nathan Lane. The son of a choreographer, he grew up backstage and developed an early love for making live theater. After earning a degree in Entertainment Business, he moved to Chicago and worked in the theater community at Victory Gardens, Drury Lane, and Chicago Children’s Theatre. Forging his own path, he studied writing, improv, and musical comedy at The Second City and iO. Alongside his wife and creative collaborator, Anthony has spent years bringing independent projects to life, including immersive theater, original musicals, live comedy shows, and a DIY comedy theater that operated out of their basement. Their musical The Mountain Digby, has earned recognition from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Steller Emerging Creator Award, and the American Playwriting Foundation. He is also the lead singer and principal “skanker” of The Founding Skathers, a comedy ska band. Since moving to Los Angeles, he has worked as an acting coach at Nickelodeon on The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder and Warped! and has performed in The Elysian Theater’s Spaghetti Fest.
Alex Kliner - Producer, Writer, Music Director
Alex Kliner is a writer, composer, and performer for stage and screen. He began his comedy career in Chicago as Music Director for The Second City, writing music and designing sound for multiple resident revues on the e.t.c. stage. He’s written for Cards Against Humanity, toured with Whose Line Is It Anyway? filling in for Dr. Laura Hall on the keys, and has produced music for feature films, series, and numerous podcasts on Earwolf and other networks. A regular performer at SF Sketchfest, Alex improvises piano accompaniment for Paul F. Tompkins’ SponTourCo and other live shows. He’s the co-creator and co-host of the Earwolf podcast The Supergroup, bringing comedians and musicians together to write and record original songs. Alex is represented by Canopy Media Partners.
Brad Kemp - Composer
Brad currently serves as the Artistic Director at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, where he is a nightly fixture on the piano. A prolific composer and performer, he is also a founding member of the comedy rap trio Handsome Naked, whose work has reached the Billboard Comedy Top 10 and been featured on NBC’s Bring The Funny. With a degree in Music Composition from Columbia College, Brad has scored numerous acclaimed productions, including The Mountain Digby, Abduction, and the award-winning Tapped. His collaborative portfolio spans from Saturday Night Live alum Chris Redd to RuPaul’s Drag Race winners Yvie Oddly and Shea Couleé. Whether he is contributing to iHeartRadio podcasts or musical directing theater at The Second City and New York Stage and Film, Brad remains a vital voice in the intersection of music and comedy. He lives in Amsterdam with his wife and their dog, Bootsy.
John Lombard - Writer
John Lombard is a creative writer and lyricist whose work spans theater, short films, and fiction, often exploring unconventional characters, dark comedy, and everyday underdogs in bigger-than-life circumstances. His early love of storytelling led him to study theater and entertainment in college and later train in Second City’s comedy writing program. His work has been recognized by the Austin Film Festival, Indie Short Fest, and the National Alliance for Musical Theater. John is grateful to be part of this project and to collaborate with such a talented creative team. Outside of writing, his newest favorite role is being a dad to his six-month old son, Luca.
Grace Palmer .............. Associate Producer
Kristen Bernier ............ Choreographer
Tyler Davis .................. Technical Director
Karly Bergmann ........... Shadow Puppetry Director
Jake Quatt .................. Shadow Puppetry Designer, Puppeteer
Ches Cipriano .............. Shadow Puppetry Designer, Puppeteer
Nicole Werth ............... Costume Designer
Sarah Moore ................ Marketing Consultant
Peter Scott .................. Set Builder
Jacquelyn Landgraf ..... Creative Consultant
Cast:
Anthony Lombard
Rashawn Scott
Susan Glynn
Bruce Merkle
Andrew Huber
Jordan Lee Cohen
Isabella Gerasole
Jesse Kendall
Alan Giles
Grace Palmer
Dan Leahy
+ More announced soon!